Girl testifies how Grandpa Ping allegedly sexually assaulted her thrice

An 11-year-old girl testified yesterday how Jose Ilo Santos, also known as Grandpa Ping, sexually assaulted her thrice when she was only 7 years old at his house in Tanapag.

The girl took the witness stand after her mother completed her testimony in the ongoing retrial of the 63-year-old Santos in Superior Court.

The jurors started deliberating yesterday late afternoon after both the prosecution and the defense rested their case. The jurors went home at 6:05pm and are going to resume their deliberations this morning, Wednesday.

The government rested its case after calling to the witness stand the fourth and last witness, former police officer Patrick Sablan, who served as then-officer-in-charge of the case.

Chief public defender Douglas Hartig and assistant public defender Michael Sato, both counsel for Santos, did not call any witness.

Hartig moved for judgment of acquittal after the government rested its case.

Associate Judge Joseph N. Camacho, who is presiding over the jury trial, denied the defense’s motion.

The alleged victim testified that she was playing jumping rope with her brother and cousins when Santos called her to his house, where he then sexually assaulted her three times in separate incidents when she was 7 years old.

The Office of the Attorney General charged Santos with two counts of sexual abuse in the first degree over two incidents that allegedly occurred on April 23 and May 7, 2011.

The girl said in the first incident, Santos touched her private parts using a glove.

The girl said in the second and third incidents, her private parts hurt after Santos sexually assaulted her.

She said in the third incident, she kicked Santos.

The girl said Santos would tell her not to tell anyone about the incidents.

The girl said she first disclosed to her teenaged cousin, whom she trusted, as to what happened to her.

She said she didn’t tell her mother because she was scared that she would be mad at her.

In her testimony, the mother said that in May 2011 she learned about the incidents from her cousin, who also heard it from another relative.

The relative was the person that the alleged victim referred to as the one she trusted.

The mother said she and her cousin took out her daughter from school and brought her to a beach.

At the beach, her daughter confessed to her what Santos did to her.

The mother said she was very upset and crying. She said her daughter was also crying.

In the government’s closing arguments, assistant attorney general Shannon Foley said the Commonwealth has met the burden to prove beyond reasonable doubt that Santos is guilty of the charges.

Foley said the girl cried while recalling the sexual assaults to then-police detective Sablan.

Foley said the girl told what Grandpa Ping did to her, to her cousin and subsequently her mother, police, doctors, lawyers, and court.

“How many times [she] would tell the story how the defendant sexually assaulted her?” Foley said.

The prosecutor said fortunately, the girl got help because of her decision to tell her cousin.

Foley noted Dr. Chad Lowe’s testimony and diagnose that the girl was indeed a victim of sexual assault.

In the defense’s closing arguments, chief public defender Hartig said the false story really came from the girl’s cousin, who was a troubled person and even killed herself.

Hartig said children are susceptible to power of suggestion.

Hartig said children can be thought and can adapt to it.

When Saipan Tribune left the courtroom at 4pm, Hartig was still conducting his closing arguments.

In October 2012, the jury found Santos guilty of two counts of sexual abuse of a minor in the first degree.

In March 2013, Camacho sentenced the defendant to the maximum of 60 years in prison, to be served without the possibility of parole.

Santos appealed to the CNMI Supreme Court.

In December 2014, the high court then ruled that the trial court abused its discretion by permitting the victim advocate to accompany the girl at the witness stand. The high court reversed the convictions and ordered a new jury trial.

A retrial was held in March 2015. But Camacho declared a mistrial after the jury was left with only five members.

The second retrial commenced on Monday.